Now that the Playstation Network is back online, the great downplaying by Sony has begun. Sony CEO Howard Stringer has been making the rounds in the media world, talking about the massive security fail, and in his eyes, it's not that big of a deal. He calls it a 'hiccup', something that happens to all large networks.

Sony's Howard Stringer started the process of downplaying the security fail by telling Bloomberg that it really wasn't that big of a deal. “Nobody’s system is 100 percent secure,” he told Bloomberg, “This is a hiccup in the road to a network future.” Apparently, exposing personal information - including credit card data - of nearly 80 million people the world over is a 'hiccup'.

Talking to The Wall Street Journal, Stringer continued the downplaying by addressing the state of Sony's security before the attack. "It was generally perceived to be very good," he said, "You have to understand that [Sony Online Entertainment] has been in business for 10 years and PlayStation Network has been in business for five years without any breaches of magnitude. We have no reason to believe that our security was not good."

This line of reasoning makes no sense. Just because nobody hacked you before, doesn't mean your security was up to snuff. It's all part of the PR offensive; mention how many years the PSN functioned without leaking 80 million users' data as many times as possible, and maybe it'll distract from the fact that, you know, 80 million people just saw their personal information compromised by criminals.

As far as I see it, the fact that this much data has been stolen clearly means Sony's security wasn't good enough, and I would hope that the CEO of Sony would be able to acknowledge that. This doesn't instill me with confidence for the future.